“I kind of find it, like, total respect,” said Matthews. “Especially in a building like this, a big-time hockey city and fan base. So I don’t mind it at all.”

Matthews probably deserves it in Montreal. He scored his league-leading 64th goal to reach the 100-point mark and the Leafs beat the Canadiens 4-2 on Saturday night.

Matthews has been using the Canadiens as his personal punching bag. He has 27 goals against them in 34 games, his personal high against any team. That includes a season-opening hat trick.

With Mitch Marner back from a 12-game injury layoff, coach Sheldon Keefe opted to keep Matthews with Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi. Domi and Matthews scored 17 seconds apart in the second period to start the Leafs on their way.

“You score two quick goals like that and you get the momentum flipped on our side,” said Matthews. “That was big for us. We just compete every shift, every game. All three of us have different attributes in what we excel at, so we just try to use each other.”

Bobby McMann and Matthew Knies also scored for the playoff-bound Leafs, who added another layer to the history between the NHL’s oldest teams: a rare season sweep of the Canadiens.

“They’re winning. I don’t feel they’re beating us, but they’re finding ways to win,” said Montreal coach Martin St-Louis. “We just have to keep at it. Hopefully we flip it soon.”

Not that Montreal had much hope to make the post-season, but the loss officially ended any chance that mathematics had given them.

Matthews marks

Matthews’s 64th goal was significant on a few fronts.

He became the third Leaf ever with two 100-point seasons, joining Darryl Sittler and Doug Gilmour. No Leaf has had three. And Matthews is just the seventh American to hit the century mark twice. Jeremy Roenick is the only NHLer from the U.S. with three 100-point seasons. And Matthews’s 29th road goal of the season bettered his own franchise best, set in 2021-22.

Marner returns

With Marner back, Keefe spread the top offensive players — Matthews, Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander — over three lines.

“The coaching staff is going to do what they feel is best, to put ourselves in position to have success and to win,” said Tavares. “We all take a lot of pride in whoever we play with, and go out there and be effective: carry play, create opportunities. And obviously, we have the ability to score.”

But nobody scored in the first period, on either team. Montreal carried the play and won 11 of 15 faceoffs, led by Nick Suzuki going four for five, including two for two against Matthews. Suzuki had the best scoring chance early, but hit the post. McMann did the same for the Leafs.

But Toronto’s top three lines all struck early in the second period, chasing Sam Montembeault with a four-goal outburst over a six-minute span.

Domi deflecting an Ilya Lyubushkin shot, and 17 seconds later Matthews got a break when his attempt through the crease deflected off David Savard’s skate and in. Knies scored by scooping up a Nylander rebound. And McMann buried a feed from Marner.

For Marner, that was career assist No. 458, moving him past Tomas Kaberle for fifth on the Leafs list.

“I thought they worked well,” Keefe said of his new lines. “It was good to see each of them get on the board.”

Montreal scored 12 seconds into the game’s first power play, with Suzuki giving the Canadiens life. And Cole Caufield was left alone with 1:28 remaining in the period to cut Toronto’s lead to 4-2.

“We defended well when we needed to once we got the lead,” said Keefe. “We gave up two. One whatever, 10 seconds into a penalty kill, and one bad shift in that second period. But the third period, a little bit too much time maybe on our half of the ice, but we didn’t give them very much at all.”

After the clinch

The Leafs had clinched their eighth trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs before they even took the ice. That happened Friday night with losses by the Detroit Red Wings, Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers. But it doesn’t change much.

“It’s a good feeling,” said Domi. “The last (few) games, we have to use them to get ready to go.”

Missing Leafs

Nick Robertson was a healthy scratch for the first time in 11 games. He had three goals and an assist in Marner’s absence … Conor Timmins and Noah Gregor were also healthy scratches … Joel Edmundson (undisclosed) missed his sixth game, Timothy Liljegren (upper body) his fifth. Calle Järnkrok (hand) missed his 11th game.